Confederate statues are at the center of a red hot conversation happening in our country right now, but does your state contain one of these monuments to the Confederacy, and is the public aware of why it was erected?

These statues are located all throughout America and, by definition, a monument is "a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event a monument is something that is." By definition, the Confederacy

refers to 11 states that renounced their existing agreement with others of the United States in 1860–1861 and attempted to establish a new nation in which the authority of the central government would be strictly limited and the institution of slavery would be protected.

There is a large group of people who, while recognizing the history of the Confederacy in America also recognizes the fact that they lost the war "for their right to own slaves." Over the last few years, we have seen these monuments taken down by cities across the country and, as of late, citizens have taken matters into their own hands by tearing down the statues that stand in their respective communities.

One truth that we must accept is that most people probably don't even know what certain statues in their town (confederacy-related or not) represent in the first place. Many others don't realize that the majority of these monuments were actually erected decades after the Civil War, mainly during the Jim Crow era into the Civil Rights movement. If you deep dive into the comment section of any local social media post related to the Alfred Mouton statue that stands near the old city hall in downtown Lafayette, many people are shocked to find out that so many of these monuments aren't nearly as old or historic as they once believed.

Speaking of the Mouton statue, at the time of this post there are nearly 12,000 signatures on a petition to have the statue relocated.

For those who aren't sure about the history behind these monuments, a website from The Southern Poverty Law Center features a "Who's Heritage" map that shows where these types of statues are located. Though a helpful starting point, the list can definitely use some updating because there are mentions of certain statues that have already been removed, but the site only allows for updating via a form that users can submit "on the status of various monuments."

So regardless of how you feel about these monuments, educating yourself about them is most definitely paramount and this website is an easy tool to help you do just that.

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